3 concerning stats Steelers must correct following the Week 7 bye

The Pittsburgh Steelers have their work cut out for them during the bye week. Here are three concerning statistics they must correct. 

When the Steelers handed out numerous voidable-year contracts this past offseason, I don’ think they were expecting to sit on a 3-3 record entering the bye week. After losing three games in a row early in the year, Pittsburgh bounced back to narrowly take care of business against the Broncos and Seahawks in each of their last two games.

Sadly, the team we saw over the first six weeks of the season isn’t going to stand a chance to make a legitimate run without some serious changes following their Week 7 bye. Here are three very concerning statistics that must be improved upon after the break:

Steelers points per game: 19.5 (25th)

A decade or two ago, there are some football teams who might have been able to get away with scoring under 20 points per game. However, even a team with elite defense in today’s NFL can’t expect to win many games with an offense failing to put points on the board.

This number is even lower, in fact, if you factor in the special teams touchdown Pittsburgh scored in Week 1 against the Buffalo Bills. There is plenty of blame to go around here. Ben Roethlisberger has been underwhelming, to say the least, while the offensive line has been well below average to begin the season.

The Steelers have the bye week to try to sort things out and come up with a game plan that is going to kickstart this offseason. Fortunately, we saw a bit more success over Pittsburgh’s last two games thanks to a running game that is finally starting to take off. However, the Steelers really need to be scoring at least 24 points per game (which is roughly NFL average) to give themselves a chance down the stretch.